


immortal with a kiss

by Nibelung



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape Aftermath, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-27 03:51:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21112208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nibelung/pseuds/Nibelung
Summary: A lovers’ reunion beneath the broken vaults of the tower on the Wizard’s Isle.





	immortal with a kiss

She finds him in the dungeons of the ruined tower, open now to the sky where her song rent the vaulted stones and threw down the proud walls.

Gingerly, hesitantly, she picks her way barefoot across the fallen stones on the dungeon floor. She lost one of her silver shoes during her descent from Hirilorn. That was how the hunters found her, Celegorm and Curufin, who stole her away to Nargothrond and took her maidenhead by force within its thousand caves.

Huan, the hound who proved a better creature than his masters, hangs back. Clearly he knows that she has important words to speak with the person she seeks to find here.

She hopes that Beren is not repulsed by what he sees when he lays his eyes on her.

She had cut her hair to neck length, a bold fashion statement among the Eldar: the rest of it, grown out with a magic spell, she had used to fashion a rope to escape her treehouse prison, and a cloak of shadow to hide her flight from prying eyes.

But Celegorm and Curufin, whose hunting dogs had noses that pierced beyond mere sight, had found her nonetheless; and they shaved her head when first she tried to escape Nargothrond, before Huan the faithful came to her aid. They meant it doubtless as a temporary punishment: not realizing that her hair would never grow again beyond its current length, that all its power of growth was bound up in the spell she had woven for her escape.

One of her ear-tips is missing now, cut off when her hair was shorn. Her captors were not over-careful with their blades. And they beat her. Her nose is broken; three teeth are gone; she lisps now slightly when she talks.

More, the two hunters plied Orodreth the regent with drink, and pushed him only half-awake into bed with their captive, making him a party to their vile deeds.

And worst of all: now, she knows, two lives stir within her womb, sons born of two different fathers: two tiny Elves, innocent of the crimes of their sires, for whose sake she might forever lose the one she loves.

So now, with muddy bare feet and bald head, the dress beneath her cloak of night tattered and soiled with the fluids that mark her as Curufin’s bride in law (for he was the one who first penetrated her), she approaches with trepidation the object of her quest, the subject of her forbidden desire: the mortal, Beren Erchamion.

His blond hair and beard have grown long, untrimmed during his captivity. His black cloak is tattered and blood-stained, a match for her own soiled clothes. His sword is gone, taken no doubt by Thû; but the serpent-ring of his father, wrought with delicate skill by the elven-smiths of Nargothrond, glimmers still upon his finger.

He is weeping over the body of Felagund.

He hears her approach, and looks up, tears still running down his face.

“Tinúviel! I knew it was thee – for who else could wreck the towers of the Necromancer as thou hast done?” He stands, steps forward on unsteady feet, and wraps her in that great bear-like embrace she remembers so well. His golden beard tickles her as he puts kisses on her cheeks.

“But alas! thy aid is too late for my companion,” he says, turning again to the bloodied corpse on the floor. “Felagund king of Nargothrond, my father’s friend whom I sought out to help me accomplish my great task, is dead. For at the last he was true to his oath, and died saving my life, slaying with his hands a terrible she-wolf that Thû set upon us in our bondage.”

It is a joy to see her beloved alive, grieving though he might be, yet Lúthien blinks back her own tears of sadness. What he will say, what he will do, when he learns what has happened to her?

But Beren has been nothing but honest and true to her thus far, and with heavy heart she speaks the words that might be her doom.

“There is no longer need of doing that great feat, my love. For maiden I am no more. ‘Twas Celegorm and Curufin of that same Nargothrond, who captured me in the woods and made me theirs by force. Behold my shorn hair, which shall never grow more, as proof of their black deeds. By law I am now another man’s wife, willing or no; and thus thy oath to my lord father binds thee no more.”

Beren’s face darkens as the words leave her lips. “Wretched swine! Unworthy of the meanest Orc are the shameful deeds they have dared. If ever I see them, their blood shall stain the soil of this Middle-earth.” He runs a hand in sympathy across the back of her bald head; the feeling of her stubble bending under his grasp is strangely pleasurable.

“But I know the fear in thy heart, and I bid thee cast it aside. For I love thee; ravished and hairless as thou art, I love thee, and would still have thee for mine own. Nothing shall change that, unless thou spurn me of thy own will, unworthy of thee as I am.” His visage brightens once more, and he flashes the smile that won her heart first in the glades of Doriath.

Hearing his words bring a blush to her pallid cheeks. But the full tale is not yet told, and she continues on, come what may, because she knows she must.

“Beren… I am with child. Two sons quicken in my womb even now.”

Stunned, he steps back a pace, and hesitates a moment before speaking. “With child?” But the radiant smile returns soon to his face, and he catches hold again of her shoulders. “How marvelous are the Elves, that know such things even in the hour of their quickening! Be it so, still I will cleave to thee. The babes are thine, and I shall love them therefore; or if thou wouldst rather cast them into the wilderness, to live or die at the pleasure of the Gods, I will obey thy will in this as in all things.”

A massive weight is lifted from Lúthien’s heart. She returns Beren’s smile; she cannot help it, though she knows it must seem slightly grotesque with her missing teeth.

“If thou wilt truly have me still, deflowered and gravid, I will run away with thee to the ends of Middle-earth. But if thou speakest from mere courtesy, and wouldst in truth rather cast me aside and leave me to my lawful husband, spare my feelings not, and tell me; I will abide, though it break my heart to the sundering of body and soul to do so.”

Confusion settles on Beren’s brow.

“What! Are all elves as cruel and capricious as the spawn of Fëanor? Because others are honourless, it does not follow that I should be so also. Nay, I will seek still to fulfil my oath to thy father, and wrest a Silmaril from the iron crown of Morgoth himself. This I will do because I have sworn; and afterwards I shall defend thee against all false claimants to thy hand.

“In this matter I care not what the customs of the Eldar may be; for I am thine, and thou art mine, and as we have plighted our troth, I hold with the ways of Men, that this is all that matters.” And his whole face beams like a ray of sun through the topless trees of the forests of her sheltered youth.

He kisses her then, passionately, profoundly, not on the cheek but on the lips, and joy burns like fire in her veins, and she returns his kiss, letting her tongue play with his, the pain from her broken teeth only adding spice to the sweet pleasure.

“Glad beyond measure am I that thou wilt not cast me aside, beloved,” she says. “But if thou wouldst still strive to honor thy oath, we must make haste hence. For the eyes of Morgoth will have espied the fall of Tol-in-Gaurhoth ere long, and we must be gone before his Orcs are come in force to see what has befallen.”

“Indeed, that is so; but I will not stir from here ere I have buried noble Felagund as he deserves.”

With Huan’s help they dig a grave in the earth for Felagund. But before placing his body in the grave, Beren takes from it the green cloak of royalty, and replaces it with his own furred black mantle.

“Thus, I understand, do thy Eldar kin exchange cloaks when they are wed,” he says. “Now I too am married to another; for we loved each other, and knew each other after the fashion of men, and his death will be a grief to me so long as I am sundered from him.”

“But the nature of the Eldar is such that our souls return into the bodies of our children; and with time and contemplation those thus reborn remember their old lives,” Lúthien replies. “So it may be with Felagund; and he may walk these woods again long after we twain have departed.”

“Thou touchest on the greatest dread within my heart,” says Beren. “Shalt thou too be reincarnated, or dwell among the souls of Elves that linger in the halls of memory, while mine own soul passes on forever to I know not where? O cruel Gods! O wicked Powers that could countenance such separation! But for my part I say we shall defy them if need be, daring to love each other without heed for what eternity might bring.”

“So thou speakest for me too, beloved,” Lúthien says. “But let us make haste with our duty to thy fallen friend. Time passes, and with every grain of sand in the hourglass our peril grows.”

They pile the soil on Felagund’s body, and make a cairn over the site with fallen stones.

Afterwards, with tools taken from the wrack of the tower, they dress the bat-fell Lúthien tore from Thû during their combat, and skin the black pelt from the corpse of the wolf Draugluin. Their notion is that they might gain entry uncontested into Angband thus disguised. Shamed as she now is, Thû will not slink back to her master soon – or so Lúthien hopes.

She had feared Beren might not take to Huan; but much to her delight, he accepts the dog readily as a companion on their travels. More than that, Beren has a gift for dealing with dogs that she honestly didn’t expect to see in a Man. It’s frankly bizarre seeing such an enormous hound, bred for hunting game on the green plains of unseen Valinor, roll over and pant heartily to have its belly scratched.

Together, the green-clad Man with the golden mane and the Elf in a tattered blue dress, pregnant and bald-headed with filthy bare feet, walk from the ruin of the Necromancer’s tower into the dawning sunlight, with a dog running at their side, barking joyfully.

**Author's Note:**

> Lúthien’s children are Celebrimbor (by Curufin) and Gil-galad (by Orodreth). Celegorm didn’t impregnate her because he pulled out early: true to his name, “hasty riser”.
> 
> By Elven standards Luthien is Curufin’s wife, because he deflowered her first: the same legal formulation as in the Old Testament. The published Silmarillion’s mention of Celebrimbor being an adult in Nargothrond already at this time is Christopher Tolkien’s fault.
> 
> Later, she will go on to have two other children: Dior, of course, but also Elwing, from being raped by Morgoth during her time in Angband. Elwing is said to be Lúthien’s daughter in some early LOTR draft manuscripts, and Elrond being related to Morgoth builds on his role as a Merlinic magical-advisor figure. 
> 
> Likewise, Helen of Troy’s mother Leda had four children born from two different fathers, her mortal husband Tyndareus and the god Zeus – and the quartet of Celebrimbor, Gil-galad, Dior, and Elwing bears a resemblance to Tolkien’s offspring Christopher, Michael, John, and Priscilla.
> 
> Luthien having silver shoes in Doriath but being barefoot after her escape from Nargothrond is a detail taken from the Lay of Leithian.
> 
> Draugluin’s fur is black, but his name means “blue wolf”. This is a play on how Norse sagas and Homer’s Greek poetry both use “blue” to describe things modern writers would call “black” instead.
> 
> Yes, Sauron/Thû is “naturally” female. However, being a Maia she can dress herself in “raiment” of the opposite sex when she wants to. In Morgoth’s court and later as a potentate in Middle-earth she does so more often than not: but Thuringwethil is a female form, whom she pretends is a separate messenger, like Bram Stoker’s Dracula playing his own coachman. Lúthien, though, is too observant not to know a woman when she sees one.


End file.
